Janjivan Bureau / Chandigarh : Doctors at PGI, Chandigarh, have performed the first-ever simultaneous liver and kidney transplant in the premier institute on a terminally ill 40-year-old patient suffering from liver and renal failure.
Lauding his team’s feat, PGI Director Prof Jagat Ram said, “The team has done it again. This time, it is the simultaneous liver and kidney transplant surgery on a single recipient, one of the most complex and demanding organ transplantations… even the recipient had to be selected very carefully.”
He said so far, the institute has been successfully conducting heart, kidney, pancreas, liver and cornea transplants. “With today’s commendable initiative, PGI has forayed into simultaneous liver and kidney transplant.” A team of over 12 doctors with residents, transplant coordinators, technical and nursing staff conducted the complex operation in over 10 hours.
The accomplishment was made possible because of the donor family of a young girl hailing from Bihar, who was declared brain dead on February 2. She was brought to the PGI in an extremely critical condition on January 25, after being referred here from a hospital near Ludhiana where she was taken after sustaining grievous head injuries in a road accident on January 24.
The family showed unprecedented courage and consented to donate her organs. Her liver and kidneys were used for transplantation at the PGI.
As there was no matching recipient for the heart at PGI, Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) in Delhi was approached. The heart was allocated to a Delhi hospital for the matching recipient.
Prof Anil K Gupta, MS and HoD, Department of Hospital Administration, PGI, said, “Words cannot describe the selfless gesture of the donor family. We are overwhelmed by their spirit of giving.”
